Talk about the slowed down nature of making work through this process and, in particular, at night.

making work at night is a meditation, as is platinum printing. in terms of making night photographs, it is an act of paying attention to spaces we pass every day, and looking for beauty where others see nothing. i begin to see more as i look for those magic spaces ‘in between’, and in return the landscape beings to teach me. i discover places i would have never thought important, compelling, or beautiful, and i learn more about the neighborhoods and places that are equally a part of the urban spaces we call home. our eyes are subjective consumers, and in the daily ritual of looking we tend to see everything as a photograph. or a potential photograph. but as photographers we know most of these don’t work out. it’s our intentions and “vision” that makes an image worth printing, or even shooting in the first place. when i’m actively photographing at night i do everything from consider the exposure to thinking about how i want to show detail in the final print, or how i might need to compensate for detail in development and printing. it’s all very ansel adams! [laughs] from there i’ll set up the camera and tripod, then begin the nuts and bolts of picture making. exposures are the quickest part, ranging from a minute to maybe an hour depending on where i am and what i’m trying to achieve. printing is an entirely separate process, but an equally important one, best left to itself.

 my typical day at mopa is a diverse range of management, design, and long range planning. that can take the form of anything from meeting project deliverables to branding and laying out individual exhibitions. i spend a lot of time on the minutia of exhibition planning, which is to say the administrative tasks nobody (viewers) should be thinking about when looking at a finished exhibition. i believe that if my work appears invisible then i’ve done my job well. it’s a nice metaphor for my own work outside the museum too. but one of the great rewards at mopa is working with a team of talented people and being exposed to art on a daily basis, be it historic work by known photographers, unknown photographs that are simply wonderful, or contemporary artists who are pushing new boundaries. it is enriching, and i’m certainly very lucky.

I am so excited about the new Medium Festival of Photography that is coming up in San Diego in September.  How did it come about and can you share a little about the festival?

You wear so many hats in the photo world — successful photographer, Museum Director, Festival Director, friend and supporter of all things photography — how do you balance it all?

 When you were emerging as a photographer, what took your work to the next level, and what suggestions do you have for photographers trying to establish themselves?

 my work evolved through the passionate study of good photographs, which meant reading a lot of books and attending as many lectures as i could. the greatest influences on me were workshops offered by master photographers. these short, 3 to 5 day experiences taught me more than anything i learned in formal study at a prestigious university. they helped define my dharma.

 And finally, what would be your perfect day?

 my perfect day would involve opening someone’s eyes to photography. this could mean sharing the magic of a camera with someone or teaching them something new about the medium. it could also mean my learning something new, which is a borderline addiction. i recently discovered a book of desert writings that i hadn’t picked up in several years. the process of sitting down with this book and re-reading it page by page has turned into a series of perfect days, one after the other. the writing has little to do with photography but has given me a half dozen new ideas to think about… a half dozen new reasons to follow my camera into new territory. the perfect day is about eye opening experiences, plain and simple. who’s eyes those are is less important than the act of inspiration itself.